Relationship.

I know that there are people who look down on Micah's and my relationship.  I can honestly say that I am okay with that.  I am grateful for a loving God, who pursues both of us exactly as we are, and His glory is being carried out in our relationship.

I've heard, "A [significant other] ought to make you want to be the best person you can be," or
                 "A [significant other] ought to make want to be a better person."
                 "A [significant other] ought to make you a better person."
                 "A [significant other] is meant to make you more like Jesus."

Now, if looking at all these things together, it makes sense.  The best I can be, it's like Jesus.  A better person...well, Jesus was the best person.  However, it's not the significant other who has the work to ever change anything about us, how we function.  Only God has the power to do that.

I am blessed.  I have been grateful for Micah's imperfections because they urge me to deeper reliance upon my Abba.  Just as Jesus has the same nature as the Father but did not act apart from His Father's lead, so I am formed to be.  If I try to accept and control Micah's perfections and/or imperfections by my own power, I will become depressed, irritable, miserable, and quite repulsive to Micah.  Therefore, his imperfections move my heart to even greater relationship, humility, and gratitude.

Even so, I have been wanting to be so full of God's power for Micah--so strong and without weakness.  But I am blessed that Micah is such a gentle, understanding man.  By a conversation Micah and I had the other day, the Spirit was so sweet to let me understand that my imperfections are good for our relationship too!  "Give thanks in all circumstances..."  Not only do Micah's imperfections allow me to constantly enter into a place of humble worship, but my imperfections bid Micah become more like Christ as well!

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends." John 15.13
As I am openly honest with Micah about my weaknesses, he accepts the call to deny himself for my gain. That is love.  And it is love given by our perfect, heavenly Father.